Category Archives: friends

Memorial Day

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Welcome, summer! No matter what that silly lunar calendar says, Memorial Day weekend is the beginning of the Fun & Sun season. You’ve got food and drink and friends and family — what else do you need? Usually my outdoor entertaining consists of opening a bag of potato chips and bringing paper plates out to the deck, but folks like my friend Sharon in Huntsville, Alabama, know how to do it right. At a recent gathering in her fabulous backyard, she brought the indoors out with metal serving trays and oversized clear glass candlesticks for statement-making pillar candles decorating the wine buffet — a super idea since I usually think of light-and-disposable for outdoor eating. And, Sharon, I think I need another invitation soon so I can copy be inspired by your great ideas.

Gardens

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When you walk up to my friend Sharon’s house in Madison, Alabama, you can tell a gardener lives there by the gorgeous landscaping and flowers in her front yard. But it’s the backyard that shines. This is a gardening paradise and I could move right in and live there — and Sharon’s an easygoing and generous sort of friend so she probably wouldn’t mind. Much, that is. This is the kind of backyard where details delight everywhere you look. I’m not a gardener so all I know about her plantings are that they’re beautiful. I was more drawn to such treasures as benches tucked away in quiet little corners, paths angling off into green adventure and a chandelier hanging from a tree lighting the table. “We wanted it to be a series of outdoor rooms,” Sharon said, “like an extension of our house.” And the thing is that she and her husband did this all themselves over the past 15 years, working on one project in one spot at a time. The result? A backyard paradise that anybody can duplicate. In face, Sharon’s garden is on the Huntsville (Alabama) Botanical Garden’s Spring Garden Tour, 1-6 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, June 5-6. Her goal is to convince folks that you don’t need money and a team of landscapers and gardeners to create something wonderful. I think she’s succeeding. Call 256-830-4447 or visit www.hsvbg.org for details about the garden tour.

Seafood

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I used to have a rule about only eating rare/raw seafood (and I’m talking mainly raw oysters here) when I actually can see the water it came out of, but after realizing that limits me to about (maybe if I’m lucky) five or so days out of the year, I decided to make exceptions for beautifully cooked ahi tuna. (And, OK, Appalachicola Bay oysters at Birmingham’s Fresh Market.) Good thing, too, because northwest Alabama is nowhere near tuna water and I would have missed out on this incredibly delicious Ahi Tuna Salad from Dish Gourmet Cafe in Florence. I promise you that it tastes as good as it looks — sort of sweet and salty and oceany all at the same time. I loved the mixture of the rich velvety tuna with the crunchy wasabi-coated peas. I told my friend that I’d give her a piece of the tuna so she could taste it, but somehow as our lunch progressed I looked down at my plate and there was none left to share. I am a bad friend. But a good eater. Learn more about Dish, a fun and friendly downtown lunch spot, at http://dishgourmetcafe.com

Yard Sales — and a Mystery!

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Okay, all y’all antiques detectives. I need help! As much as I love a good bargain and the thrill of the hunt, I’m not one to get all googly-eyed over yard sales. Some people are. Some people get up on Saturday morning while it’s still dark and gather their yard-sale tools (measuring tape, hand wipes, bottled water, coffee) and then set off to discover treasures. I only do that in extreme circumstances — such as when the bed-and-breakfast in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where Dear Husband and I stayed after our wedding is cleaning out the linen closets and hosting a yard sale with profits benefiting the church next door where Dear Husband and I got married. Now, that is worth it. The folks who owned Byrn-Roberts Inn, a gorgeous 1903 house on Main Street just a block or so away from Murfreesboro’s downtown, had closed the inn several years ago and were simply living in the house as normal people. But apparently they decided they didn’t need dozens of water pitchers and hand towels after all and decided to declutter and help out Central Christian Church at the same time. My mom and Younger Daughter were all up for the adventure, and we planned so well that we got there even before the sale started. And we all scored. My mom, with her usual impeccable eye for gems among junk, made some great buys. And YD and I didn’t do so badly either. For less than $45, I bought a wicker towel rack, a metal wall mirror, a wine carrier I’m going to use for flowers or silverware, three adorable square glass flower vases, a restaurant-style ice bucket with tongs, a fun breads cookbook and some … I don’t know what you call them … cute things on metal stakes that you stick in your garden or landscaping — including an adorable metal ladybug for Capt. Adorable (he calls them “Grouchy B Bugs” from a favorite Eric Carle book). And then I also bought this stainless-steel Mystery Pitcher. It’s about 5 inches tall and 11 inches in diameter, with a brass-colored handle and hinge on the lid. I would guess it was for warm maple syrup or something else breakfast-in-a-quaint-Victorian-inn-like except for the holes in the lid near the spout area. I forgot to ask the inn’s owners what it was when I bought, so now I’m hoping y’all can help. Any ideas?

Nashville, Tennessee

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This is what downtown Nashville, Tennessee — one of my favorite places ever — normally looks like, with the Cumberland River in its proper place. But you know from news reports and Youtube what it looked like after a weekend of record rainfall. Freakin’ unbelieveable. Cleanup is starting as floodwaters that killed at least 20 people and caused an estimated hundreds of millions of dollars in damage in Middle Tennessee gradually begin to recede. We are so grateful that friends and family there suffered only fixable problems: ruined carpets, soggy furniture, flooded-out cars and power outages. By all accounts, cleanup is going to be a major challenge. Keep up with the latest news and find ways to help by at http://www.tennessean.com/, site of Nashville’s daily newspaper, the Tennessean.

And while you’re clicking around the Interwebs, I’d love for you to read my newspaper column from this past week at http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20100430/ARTICLES/4305004. It’s about a friend and local businesswoman, Marigail Mathis, who died a couple of weeks ago from cancer complications. I say she was a friend, but actually I never went to her house or ate lunch with her or saw a movie or any of the things you normally do with friends. Yet, she made me feel as if I were a friend. She made everybody she met feel that way — she was warm and generous and supportive and encouraging, all within a three-minute conversation standing in the middle of her clothing store. Marigail was one of those special folks you just feel happy to know. She’s already missed.

Vegetables

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There’s a commercial on TV about some sort of food where the voiceover says something along the lines of “Nobody comes home and says, ‘I can’t wait to eat a big bowl of lettuce.'” But  that’s exactly what happens in our house on the days our local hydroponic farmers, Steve and Connie Carpenter, open their farmer’s market. I promise you that once you eat fresh hydroponic lettuce, you will never let plastic-packaged iceberg pass your lips again. Steve’s explained why lettuce develops more flavor when it’s grown hydroponically, but all I know is that a sandwich made with good toasted homemade bread and some of this tender-yet-crunchy lettuce is beyond delicious. Literally, it’s one of the things we just stand there and eat out of our fridge. But if you want actual recipes, go to http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20100428/ARTICLES/4285000 to find some recipes from a “Meatless Meals” cooking class I covered recently. Sherry Campbell, my friend and the director of the Shoals Culinary Center in Florence, Alabama, is a confirmed meat lover, but fresh and homegrown vegetables rank right up there with her, too, and she gave us some wonderful veggie recipes — although of course she admitted that at home she’d add a nice grilled steak to the menu. Go to http://www.jackolanternfarm.com/ to find out more about Jack O’Lantern Farms. Farmers’ markets are gearing up here in northwest Alabama/northeast Mississippi/southern middle Tennessee, and we can’t wait.

Food

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I promise you: These miniature cupcakes — “petit fours” in northwest Alabama-ese — are as yummy as they look. Here in my town, if you’re having any kind of party you’ve got to have petit fours from the Victorian Tea Room. They are so soft and tender and melty you barely have to chew them up. If it’s a celebration, you’ll find Victorian Tea Room petit fours. Over the years, I’d say I’ve served hundreds of them here at our house. When Older Daughter got married, she had four — count ’em, four — Victorian Tea Room wedding cakes that tasted just like big petit fours. People still come up to me and say, “I’m dreaming about those wedding cakes.” Yes, indeedy. The kind folks who make these will decorate the tops any way you like — flowers, baby shoes, class years in school colors. And even though Older Daughter has grown up and moved an hour away and has her own house and her own family, she adheres to tradition and wanted Victorian Tea Room petit fours for Capt. Adorable’s second-birthday party. And, really, they’re perfect for toddlers. Plus, adults gobble them up like them, too. As her contribution to the Captain’s party, Younger Daughter wanted to decorate them herself. So we ordered four dozen plain and YD tapped into her inner cupcake-artist to create these beautiful little bites of adorable cuteness. The plan was for me to do some, too. However, you see the polka-dot ones in the upper left-hand corner? And the one with the big gloppy dot in the middle? That was the one I started … until YD gently took the tubes of colored gel away from me and suggested that I merely observe. She was right. Also: We should have ordered five dozen, because they went fast. Check out the Victorian Tea Room at http://victoriantearoomcatering.com

Home Decor

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This is going to embarrass my friend so I won’t say her name — oh, let’s call her … let’s see … oh, let’s just randomly say her name is “Cheryl” and she maybe lives in Florence, Alabama — but I loved this inviting basket of towels in her downstairs bathroom. Doesn’t it look like a basket of Easter eggs? So pretty! And this isn’t just for company — she always has her towels like this. It’s like the most pampering and luxurious spa ever. She picks up the cheerful riot of colors in other of her bathroom accessories, and I’m particularly impressed that she uses this small piece of free-standing furniture in her bathroom to block one of the two doors into the room — offering a little more privacy and a cozy storage place all at the same time. I love how this simple thing reminds us how easy it is to add a touch of personality to a room without going overboard — or over budget — and how those small little details can make friends and family feel so special. And how you can tap in to your hidden creativity just by looking at everyday items in new ways. She inspired me to go home and, well … at least clean my bathroom. That’s a start, right?

Spring Decor

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Spring is peeking out here in Alabama — especially at my friend Cheryl’s apartment. She  hosted our four-woman book club and, as always anytime we’re at her place, it’s a treat. We the other three book-club members cheerfully agree that Cheryl is the best hostess among us. No contest. She’s so creative and gracious and makes us feel special without that uncomfortable I-spent-three-days-getting-ready-for-y’all-so-you’d-better-appreciate-it sort of attitude. She makes it seem so easy! And joyful, like she’s so happy we came over. Her spring decor started at the front door, with planters of cheerful flowers and a welcoming doormat that set her springtime theme of birds’ nests with soft and pretty blue eggs. She continued her theme with her place settings, which I loved. The earth-toned dishes and linens featured birds’-nest details and the centerpiece was a pedestal of delicately colored eggs. Such a serene and grownup change from the usual pink and green Easter pastels that always are around this time of year. Cheryl bought most of her pieces at Pottery Barn — she knows that store like I know a Starbucks and keeps up with what’s new and cool. The birds’-nest napkins are sold out at http://www.potterybarn.com but some individual stores might still have them. And isn’t the hunt part of the fun?

Bread

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You — yes, you! — can bake bread at home, even if you suffer from yeast phobia and break down in tears at the thought of controlling water temperature and room temperature and oven drafts and all those other variables that affect bread quality. And I’m not talking about bread machines, either. I think we can all agree that those weirdly consistently rectangular loaves never can be confused with real homemade. But there’s a way to do produce yeast bread perfectly every single time. It’s called the no-knead method, and it involves a wet dough you stir up and then let rise for almost a whole day, resulting in a freeform artisan bread that needs to be eaten that day. But you’ll never have to worry about it going stale because I promise when you make bread with this method, you’ll gobble up every crumb within minutes. I’m speaking from personal experience here — well, the gobbling up part, anyway. My friend Sherry Campbell, director of the kitchen-incubator Shoals Culinary Complex in Florence, Alabama, gave a class on this method recently and everybody was impressed. It’s easy and simple and requires equipment you probably already have on hand — or can pick up inexpensively. There rarely is breaking news in cooking, but this method got lots of attention a couple years ago when cookbook author Mark Bittman, who writes The Minimalmist column in the New York Times food section, reported on his success with the no-knead techniques perfected by Jim Lahey, a New York restaurant owner and chef. Here’s Bittman’s original article, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/08mini.html (which I was shocked to see actually came out almost four years ago instead of the two I was thinking in my head), and more photos and a story about Campbell’s class from the Florence newspaper, http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20100324/ARTICLES/3245001.